Of free justification

Christ begins his Benefits in this Life, and perfects them in the Life to come.

Now these great Benefits of the Son of God consist chiefly in this, that sin being totally abolished, death being destroyed, he restores us, being plucked out of the Kingdom of the Devil, unto the possession of eternal Life, in which God communicates himself wholly to us, and is wholly all in all. And this most glorious work of his, most full of the highest dignity, he begins in this miserable life, and will complete it in the other life, when that shall come to pass, which is written Death is swallowed up in Victory: O Death where is thy Victory? O Death where ¹is thy Sting? Howbeit these things are not said upon this account, as if there were nothing in the interim, or but little in this life, which the help of the grace of Christ does for us. As of old the help of the Eternal God was never wanting to the Israelites in the waste Wilderness, whom he was to bring into the habitations of promise; so verily neither are Christs benefits towards us little, and the riches of his bounty are not small, which the present Grace of Christ pours ⟨p. 191⟩daily upon us with a full hand, when in this sinful Nature he often helps our infirmities, forgives our sins, instructs us with his word, refreshes us with hope, supports us by Faith, feeds and strengthens us by the Sacraments, and refreshes us by his own ²Spirit, adorns us with his gifts, renews our hearts, and stirs them up to spiritual motions of better life and obedience, restrains vicious affections, by whose guidance there increase in us the beginnings of eternal life, the knowledge of God, invocation, fear, faith, true repentance, a new law, and the image of him, who Created us, &c.